


What Time Taught Us

by ManiCrackers



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shared Earth, Drug Use, F/F, Orgasm Denial, Roommates, Tentabulges (Homestuck)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 02:30:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21219089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManiCrackers/pseuds/ManiCrackers
Summary: When Latula flew solo, she flew so high.It was only a matter of time before someone came along to ground her.





	1. The Only One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueMoonHound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/gifts).

Damara looked most peaceful like this. Sprawled across her bed, hair down from that messy bun she always had it in. Long, jet black and wavy locks cascading down her grey body, covering the red hues beneath her skin when the blanket couldn’t. It was a mane, she eventually decided, though continuing that comparison and calling Damara a lioness was hardly going to work moving forward. Lionesses didn’t have manes. Big cats weren’t her forte, but that much she knew.

Her chest rose and fell slowly, almost perfectly in time with the song playing on the stereo, left on a table chair across the bedroom. A stack of CDs, mixtapes by her understanding, sat in a haphazard stack right next to it. 

This mixtape was weird. Too many instruments and voices and ambient noise at once. She’d hate to hear what the other ones were like.

Latula’s thoughts were all over the place, hardly settling on one independent thing. The music playing, not quiet enough to lull her to sleep but not too loud to be particularly intrusive. Damara’s sleeping form, and the way it left her exhausted, aching, but so incredibly aware. A paper, due in a few days that she hadn’t quite started yet. Work in the morning. She shouldn’t, there’s no reason to, but part of her thinks about Mituna. They’d never done something like this on account of his injury, and a bubbling guilt in her gut told her that she’d betrayed him. They weren’t even together, she argued with herself, but it didn’t stop her from feeling bad about it. Part of her hoped that maybe, just maybe, actually focusing on Damara would ground her. It usually did, so why wasn’t it when she needed it most?

Heaving a slow, measured sigh, Latula rolled to her side, faced instead with the burning reminder of time as Damara’s alarm clock stares back at her. It blinks, clearly not set. Maybe it was at one point and Damara simply hadn’t bothered to set it again. It’d fit her, Latula decided, smirking to herself. The red numbers blink on and off, illuminating part of the bedroom against the streetlights that bleed through her blinds. 

Latula wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. This much she knew. With her entire lower body this sore and her thoughts wandering into some sadder places, she was bound to spend all night like this. Weighing her options, Latula untangled herself from the blanket she was tangled in. The sight of herself as she stands coupled with the awful aching is enough to make her feel infinitely worse about the situation at hand. It doesn’t help that she’s going to spend the next few days stained red. So-fucking-much for afterglow. A shower is in order. Showers are good for when you feel like shit, right? Right, Latula decided, not even bothering to collect her clothes as she padded off to the ablution block. 

There, under rivets of scalding water attempting to absolve her of her recent sins, she reflected. Most namely on the immediate things, the things bothering her the most. The stuff she needed to take care of over the coming days, not to mention what just happened in there. This wasn’t quite how she imagined her first time. A little late on the draw, sure, but she’d always leaned towards the more romantic vision. Spending it with someone she truly loved. Like Mituna. God, there he was again. She’d held off on doing anything of the sort following what had happened, but stuck with him through and through. And what did she have to show for it? She needed a shirt, or something just cheesy enough to say “I held onto my virginity until being a sophomore in college and all I got was this lousy outlook on sex.”

God, she wasn’t even sure how this started. It had only been, what, a few weeks since she’d moved in? It wasn’t long, she knew that. The semester hadn’t been going for that long yet. Her roommate did not attend any sort of college, as far as she knew, nor did she understand Latula’s urgency when it came to her assignments. It was nice, in its own way. Damara exuded a pretty calm aura when Latula seemed overwhelmed already, and sometimes she was there, joint in hand, at just the right moment to keep her from flipping her god damn lid.

The warmth of the water is comforting, and Latula decided to embrace it fully by dunking her head under the steady stream, letting the water run through her long, dark locks. Her eyelids flutter closed, leaving her entirely to her thoughts other than the sound of the water and the feeling of it on her body. This is optimal lost-in-thought placement, and you’d best believe she’s about to lose her ass in some extensive soul searching. Some truly deep inspection of the self. Maybe, just maybe, she can garner an understanding of how she got here. Who she is. What the fuck she was doing. There’s no one to argue with here, and she sure as hell doesn’t have to explain herself to anyone. 

She just needs to start from the beginning. Simple enough, right?


	2. Don't Let Them See You Cry

The first thing Damara ever did was offer her a joint.

Latula had stepped into her apartment for the very first time on a sunny Saturday morning, perhaps a little too close to noon to call it such. Thankfully, her mother was too busy to accompany her, so all she had were a couple of friends and herself to deal with her belongings. Thanks to spending a good portion of her life dedicated to being fucking X-Treme, she was pretty jacked, meaning she could heave a few boxes up and down some stairs. Not that she needed to, what with the elevator and all. But she could!

She was the first to enter her own apartment. Thankfully, the others seemed a little busy with some of her boxes, so she heaved her own in order to get a head start. With the door open for them, Latula was finally able to get a good look around the place. 

What she saw wasn’t overwhelmingly impressive. Or impressive at all, really.

Her living situation is shoddier than she imagined, than the pictures from the landlord let on. Granted, she knew the place wasn’t going to be filled out with pretty couches and fancy knick-knacks, but she kinda figured it’d have, y’know, basic amenities. Damara, apparently, was one who lived without many material possessions. There wasn’t a couch. Just a couple bean bag chairs. A small TV, sitting on the opposite side of the room, hooked up to a Super Nintendo (which, she was willing to admit, was fucking SICK), and a few other minor things. The room was, for lack of a better word, shockingly barren. Not to mention, her roommate was nowhere to be found.

Latula would discover later that this was a blessing in disguise. 

Other than the lack of furniture Damara lived in, the apartment didn’t seem all that bad. It had all the basic amenities. A bathroom, two bedrooms, a small kitchen (which Damara had, of course, almost nothing in), and a living room. It also had a balcony, which overlooked the city streets quite nicely. Latula padded around the place, dumping off her boxes in her own room and getting a feel for the apartment before deciding to head back down. It took a couple hours to get everything brought inside. Tragically, Latula wasn’t one to own a ton of furniture, so there wasn’t very much she could contribute to the living room. God, she wished they at least had a couch, though. That was going to suck.

After treating her friends to lunch for all of their hard work, Latula hugged them close outside of her apartment and said her goodbyes. She thanked them again and again, held them close, and did her best not to shed tears in front of them. This was a welcome change, a pleasant one. It was for the best, really. Not only was commuting to the city for her classes a complete waste of fucking time, but she wasn’t sure if she could handle looking her mother in the eyes and telling her that she wasn’t going to study law for the tenth or eleventh time. She reminded them that, jokingly, and said her goodbyes once more before waving them off and stepping inside.

When she came back, Damara was lounging in one of those bean bag chairs. Latula watched as she processed the intrusion, her eyes growing wide once she’d registered just who had entered her apartment. “Ah! New girl!” She said, straightening up from her affront to god of a chair and taking a few puffs from the joint between her painted red lips. “Nice to meet you!” Her accent was thick, almost impossible to understand, and Latula couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt in advance for all of the words Damara was going to say that’d be totally fucking lost on her. “You want some?”

Was this a test? If it was, it was a pretty shit one. Latula wasn’t even sure what answer could have been right or could have been wrong, so with caution to the wind, she accepted. She took it, pressed the end between her lips, and inhaled. This wasn’t her first rodeo.

“Thanks,” Latula murmured as she passed it back, watching Damara settle back into her chair with a satisfied smirk on her face. “You’re uh, Damara right?”

“Yes. I am Damara,” she responded. Her attention was on the TV. There was a DVD player, now, which definitely was not there before. Was she...watching anime?

“Nice! I’m Latula,” she said, trying to keep the conversation on track.

Damara went quiet for a few moments, a smirk on her face as she watched her show. “Nice to meet you,” she eventually murmured. Latula took this as a pretty solid resignation from the conversation and nodded. 

“Right, well, uh, I’m gonna get to unpacking. I’ll be in my room if you need me? I guess?”

With that, Latula wandered to her bedroom, setting out to do just what she planned. Damara’s joint helped with the stress of organizing her room and piecing her bed frame together, and it wasn’t long before she had the bare necessities unpacked proper. Clothes were hung in her closet or folded neatly in her dresser, and she had plenty of pillows and blankets splayed out across her bed. Probably too many, since it wasn’t set to get colder until next month. The lack of proper air conditioning was not lost on her. She still had a ton to do. Clothes and a bed were the most important things, not to mention the toiletries somewhere among all this mess, but she had posters and things to decorate her room. CDs, movies, books. A bookshelf she needed to actually put together. Lights to go up on the wall. She had a vision for her own first apartment, and god damn it, she was gonna make this shit look good. An accurate representation of her personality on literally every front if it was the last thing she’d do.

It wouldn’t be long before this bedroom ended up a mess, but she digressed. Not the point of this memory.

The lull in movement is enough to get her lost in her own thoughts again. It’s a bad habit she’s developed over all of these years. Getting lost in her own thoughts, typically until it starts getting sad. This time is no different. As she lounged and lazed about her room, coming down from the stress of moving everything all the time forever, she thought about everything she left behind. About Terezi and her seeing eye dog. about her mother, as intimidating as she is. She thought about her friends, who were no doubt going to miss her sick kickflips for the next eternity, and would likely die out of sheer boredom without her. She thought about the town she came from, and how much smaller it is compared to the city she’s smack-dab in the middle of. It’s a lot to think about, and before she knew it, tears were welling up in Latula’s eyes. 

“Ugh, fuck,” she murmured to herself, moving for a blanket to wipe the tears away with. Only they kept coming. Latula was thankful that she hadn’t thrown on makeup today. It wasn’t long before she was curled up in her bed, clutching a blanket to her face to keep the tears from going further down than her cheeks, muffling her soft sobs into the fabric. You’re fine, she told herself, everything’s gonna be fine. There wasn’t a reason to be sad. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she was genuinely sad in the first place. Exhausted, maybe, and a little stressed. Underwhelmed by her current living situation, even. A few factors were just sort of piling on. God, with college starting up again soon, it was only a matter of time before she was having one of these episodes regularly. Every paper sending her into a damn hissy fit? She was fucked.

“You good?”

Latula straightened up, letting out a squeak. Damara was in her doorway, leaning through the frame with her eyebrows furrowed together. Concerned. She quickly wiped the remaining tears from her eyes in a way that she wanted to be nonchalant, but most definitely wasn’t, and nodded. “Yeah,” her voice waverec, “‘m fine. Just, uh, thinking about how I want the room to look.”

Smooth.

Damara clearly wasn’t buying it, if her face is any indication. “Uh-huh.” She says, her tone awfully accusatory for someone she just met. “Thought you were masturbating. Squeaking like mouse. Little noises.”

“Excuse me?”

“I bought second bean bag for you. Very comfy. You like red. Good. Only color they had left.” Damara was in her room fully now, checking her nails. They’re painted red, chipped, and clipped short. 

“...Right. Thanks. I owe you one.” 

“Buy me dinner?”

Was that even an equal amount? Probably not.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” 

Damara smirked, removed her shoulder from Latula’s door frame, and padded off. As she did, Latula couldn’t help but notice her attire. Distinctly Japanese schoolgirl. Everyone had a look, she supposed. Latula’s own shtick was somewhere between “Gamer Grrl” and “Sk8r Punk,” so she supposed there wasn’t anything stopping Damara from taking “Anime Side-Protag.” In those Eastern Troll Anime, that’s where the maroonbloods ended up anyway. Maybe there was a level of misplaced admiration on Damara’s part. Still, who was Latula to judge?

After all, she had bigger fish to fry.


	3. I Can Barely Breathe

If she were being entirely honest and transparent, Latula loved getting high.

When you lived in a small town like she did, it was all you could really do. Drink, smoke, bonfires and casual house parties. Those latter two weren’t really her thing, though, and god knows she’d eat shit if her mother ever caught her with alcohol. It was similar with drugs, but Latula felt more confident about hiding those. After she’d managed to sneak back into her house high off her ass the first time, she was pretty damn convinced that the system could be played. Ms. Pyrope could be cheated. Mom could be beaten. 

That was years ago. Enough now for Latula being high to be a regular occurrence. Not overwhelmingly regular, but when one was as much of a complete fucking mess as her, sometimes you have to. Survive. Adapt. Overcome.

What she didn’t like, however, was being high around people. Her thoughts were bound to get the best of her especially at such an introspective time like that, and having people trying to interact with her is almost too much to bear. She prefers the whole “Would-Be-John-Hughes-Movie” approach of crawling out of her bedroom window and smoking silently on the roof. For her, it’s a bit of an intimate measure, and it’s definitely corny as hell, but it’s hers. 

This made living with a roommate especially difficult.

Two weeks had passed since Latula had moved in and just about every time she’d smoked, she’d smoked with Damara. She was always there when Latula was, collapsed in her bean bag chair as if she’d spent the whole day working. The joint passed between their lips, back and forth, and the only reason Latula wasn’t having minor mental breakdowns every five seconds was because she had something to talk with her about. A whole history between the two, coupled with a thick accent that she was still trying to put a pin in. Thankfully, Damara wasn’t too patronizing with how many times she had to repeat things. 

Latula was learning quite a lot about her new roommate, especially though these sessions. Discussions revealed she was East Alternian, and had migrated sometime in her youth with her mother. They shared a similar family construct, both raised by single mothers and having younger sisters, though Damara’s was born after they’d come over. She’d spent her life in this city, working odd jobs here and there after high school. Barely getting by, if the condition of the apartment was any indicator. Recent history was vague, and Latula was pretty damn sure it was intentional by the way she deflected the topic. It was practiced, as if plenty of others had asked her similar things. They either hurt, or she was tired of explaining herself. It wasn’t like she was going to push the subject. The last thing she wanted was for her roommate to despise her just a couple weeks into her lease. All in all, it was enough to keep her from getting introspective.

Today, however, seemed particularly different. Damara sighed as she flopped into her bean bag. Something about her seemed different today. Her clothes were darker, a little more gothic perhaps, and she carried this air of irritation in every move she made. Even the spark of the lighter felt harsh. Damara took a few long drags before passing the joint Latula had made, and leaned into her chair as she took her own drags. Something was off. Latula could tell.

“You good?” She asked, before blowing smoke through her nose in an attempt to draw a smile from her. Making the astute observation that she was a dragon never seemed to fail when she was with people. Here, on the other hand, it wasn’t working.

“Fine.” Damara even sounded irritated.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

Latula nodded, passing the joint back to her. There they sat in silence, giving Latula plenty of time to stew in feelings of stress. It went without saying that she felt a little worried about Damara, but she also hadn’t taken the time to really think about things as of late. She missed her friends again, and her family. College was going well, save for the assignments being thrown at her faster than she could complete them. Things were going relatively smoothly. So why did she feel like shit?

Damara’s voice snapped her out of her trance. “Why are you crying?”

God, she hadn’t even realized it, but tears were streaming down her face. She wasn’t quite sure where it came from, but she couldn’t help but sniffle as she wiped them away. “I, uh, I dunno. Getting high kinda hits me like this sometimes, y’know? Like just, a wave of emotions. Things I think about come flooding in because I’m not really doing anything and then I just kinda...flow through them all.”

A nod came from Damara, as if she were offering her condolences. “I understand,” she said. “I think about sad things too. Sometimes. Old boy troubles. Got arrested once. Weird jobs. It floods in. Makes me feel sick.”

“Can I help at all?”

Damara shrugged. “Not your problem.”

It was a simple enough answer, one Latula expected. With how reserved Damara was, it seemed like she wasn’t exactly keen on accepting any help. “Well, if you ever need to talk. I’m here. I know I’m constantly doin’ school shit but like, I can chill for a bit. Smoke a bowl, talk about stuff.”

Damara nodded. Latula swore she saw the faintest signs of a smile. Maybe it wasn’t impossible to understand her like she initially thought. Even with the accent, she was here on an emotional level. That barrier of hers could be broken, or rather, explored, and maybe these sessions together were the key. 

The two of them smoked in silence yet again, quiet, but no longer desolate.


	4. Touch

Another week passed. Maybe two. With her assignments, she didn’t quite remember. What she did remember was the fact that she had a date. A chatty guy. Almost annoyingly so. They were just getting dinner, and he seemed nice enough when the two of them had agreed to it, but it wasn’t long before she found the guy downright insufferable. Pretentious, uppity, not nearly as down to earth and chillax as she was.

It was annoying, truly. Getting this dressed up only to spend her night watching him bitch and moan.

When she came home, she came home flustered. Bitter. Clearly so much to the point that Damara took notice. When Latula came out from her bedroom, still grumpy, there she waited, bowl in hand, a joint rolled specifically for her. A movie, even, waiting. Not something she’d seen, but a movie nonetheless. 

It happened quickly. They were smoking, talking about Latula’s date. How annoying boys could be. It was cliche, really, now that she thought back on it. The movie went on, their hands crossed a few times, and before she knew it, Damara was standing in front of her.

Bean bag chairs weren’t comfortable for that sort of thing.

Damara’s hands were surprisingly careful with their touch. They were slow, methodical, eager to explore but afraid to invade. Lips found hands before they found other lips, but it didn’t take long until Damara was straddling her, holding her close, showing her the attention she believed Latula deserved.

Each sensation was heightened by her state. Shirts came off, then rumble sphere holsters. They touched and appraised each other carefully, sweetly, until Damara’s skirt was shifting with the weight of her bulge and their purpose was clear. Oh hell yes, Latula thought. Hell. Fucking. Yes. 

It was finally happening.

Not exactly the way she expected it to happen, necessarily. Not in the slightest. She expected it to happen with Mituna, before the accident put it out of her mind. Now, she wasn’t quite sure. Then again, undoing the straps and harnesses of one fine semi-goth bitch wasn’t a total loss. Not in the slightest. Not when Damara did her best to show her respect, care, in all the little ways she tended to. They spent hours together, doing this, combating headaches and woes and boredom. Destroying delivery meals and passing out together in their bean bags, rinse and repeat. Was it ideal? Not entirely. But Latula would be damned if she was just going to put this off and throw it away. She was happy, to an extent. Conflicted, but ultimately happy. Something she’d forgotten about the moment it all fell away.

They were half-naked by the time Latula voiced her discomfort with the bean bag chairs. Wordlessly, Damara stood, encouraging her further into the apartment with the entrancing curl of her finger and the loss of her skirt. Latula wasn’t one to turn down a fine ass like that, so off she went, off to tangle and twist and curl together with Damara until the night clouded into her memory. Latula’s pants were left in the hallway, and it wasn’t long before the two were together in Damara’s bed. Her room was just as bare-bones as the rest of the apartment, and before they got down to it, Damara insisted they listen to music.

“It helps me,” she told her, before pressing play and swaying her hips to the beat. If she weren’t already naked, she might’ve done a strip-tease then. With the way she moved, Latula was certain of that.

Something about Damara’s actions drove Latula fucking nuts. Maybe it was the way she clung to her, so needy yet so gentle. As if Damara knew it was Latula’s first time. Latula tried her best to keep up, to match pace, to kiss when she kissed and touch when she touched and grind when she ground, but it was so hard to keep up with someone who was vastly more experienced than her. Latula wanted to give back, but Damara seemed perfectly satisfied in her position. Their bulges wriggled together beneath their respective underwear, and with a huff, Damara seemed finished with the teasing. 

“We do this now,” she said. She certainly wasn’t asking.

“Yes please,” Latula breathed. Off came her panties, revealing her teal bulge to the chill of the apartment. It writhed, wriggled, slapping against her thighs until it found warmth in Damara’s hand. It painted her digits teal in vigorous arousal, and with a pleasured sigh, she sunk into the mattress. Damara toyed with it, perplexed despite her confidence, and took her sweet time drawing every sound she could out of her new...girlfriend? Fuckbuddy? Another worry for a time that wasn’t right now.

It was a blatantly concentrated effort, making Latula moan. Making her beg. When she did, she was rewarded. Gasping breaths and soft pleads gave her Damara’s lips around her bulge. Latula couldn’t help but look. She was always curious, excited to see if any of the videos she’d watched felt realistic. They didn’t do nearly well enough to capture how wild it felt.

Damara’s digits did well exploring her nook, coupling it with the sensation of her mouth around her bulge until Latula was keening, whining, begging for release.

And then she stopped. Fuck.

“Fuck.” Latula gasped, eyes snapping back to Damara after being lidded in pleasure for who knows how long.

“Okay,” Damara said, giggling for what felt like the first time. It probably was.

Doing away with her own panties, she climbed upon the bed and let their bulges tangle slowly. A dance of intimacy, a sort of… mating pattern. Then, in perfect synchronization, they found each other’s nooks, and delved in. Latula writhed, Damara hissed, and the two rutted into bliss. It was all so quick, and yet it felt like an eternity. A blur, yet a firm memory in the back of her mind. Despite the chill, Latula couldn’t help but feel overwhelmingly hot. She was sweating. Damara held her hands down and pressed hungry lips and sharp teeth into her neck. Hands found her rumble spheres, clasped at her thighs, until it all was too much and Latula was close, so close, so fucking close holy “FUCK!”

Latula came first, but thankfully, Damara wasn’t too far behind. Genetic material mixed into one another, making a mess of their legs and the sheets; a concern Damara certainly didn’t seem worried about. For a brief moment, Latula’s head was swirling, and she was almost certain she would pass out, until their bulges slid out in unison and retreated to their sheathes.

Damara groaned as she flopped next to Latula. The two lazed together, in a daze of warmth and mutual exhaustion, and before Latula knew it, her bedmate had fallen asleep.


	5. In Circles

It wasn’t all bad. It definitely wasn’t the most natural progression, nor what she expected, and Latula had absolutely no fucking clue where this was bound to go, but after a long and careful reflection, she figured it was safe to say that she definitely wasn’t upset with the outcome.

After all, Damara was fucking hot, getting high was nice, and strangely enough, this was the happiest she’d been in a long time. A smile graced her lips yet again, and with a pleasant sigh, the water went off. 

When she returned to the bedroom, Damara was nowhere to be found.

Latula quirked a brow and made a b-line down the hall. There, Damara sat. Naked, messy, her hair down in a way that made her look otherworldly. Like a witch. Maybe, at this point, that was “the look.”

A joint sat neatly between her lips, carefully rolled in perfect contrast to her still-smudged lipstick. 

“Want it?”

Latula Pyrope most certainly fucking did.


End file.
